


burning up like a fever

by chibioniyuri



Category: Red Queen Series - Victoria Aveyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-13 17:19:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18473521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibioniyuri/pseuds/chibioniyuri
Summary: Maven tells no one about the whispers he hears, continuing on long after his mother is dead.*****It hurts, and he’s only ever accepted pain from one person. He will return the feeling tenfold.*****He takes delight in small, petty victories.If he couldn’t have the crown himself, this tastes just as sweet.*****He will not go gently into the dark, not again; he knows too intimately what it holds. Hope tastes like the light that he fights to stay within.A series of vignettes from Maven's POV, prior to and throughout theRed Queenseries





	burning up like a fever

**Author's Note:**

> So, so many thanks to pritkinspalemoons. Without her constant support, I would have given in to the anxiety gremlins a thousand times over and this fic would never have seen the light of day.

It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude.  
\- H. P. Lovecraft

 

Maven tells no one about the whispers he hears, continuing on long after his mother is dead.

*****

He tried, once. In his younger years, when he was still learning and growing and making mistakes, his mother was a constant presence in his head. Analyzing his choices, scolding him for mishaps, correcting whatever she deemed a deficit. Habits, quirks, nervous tics. Manner of speech, word choice, even volume. Too soft with that lord, too irreverent with that one, too suggestive with that group. 

After one particularly bad week, surrounding some gala or another for some tiny victory or another, he literally could not think without bringing on a migraine. Mother was in his head so frequently. He knows he brought it on himself, knows that if he’d just listened to her and done as she’d coached, she would have been happy. But she was frustrated because he was too slow to learn, too clumsy with his words, too emotive to guard his heart, and she’d made her displeasure known. 

He’d gone to his brother’s room for their nightly game; he wasn’t good yet, still learning the rules, but he enjoyed spending time with Cal too much to mind the trouncing he received. Over the board, between moves, he’d hesitantly brought up how his mother was frequently in his head, reprimanding him and correcting him and sometimes just yelling at him outright, and how hurt he was by her words and actions.

Cal had been quiet for a few moments, studying the board. He’d softly told Maven that parents were like that sometimes, that they just wanted their children to be the best, that that was how they showed their love - by pushing you to your limits so you would grow. He’d looked Maven in the eye then and said that it was hard to bear, but Maven was strong and smart. That he fully believed that, whatever Elara was upset about, Maven would fix and then everything would be better. He’d gone through the pattern enough with father to believe it.

Maven lost the game spectacularly that night because his head hurt too much to focus. 

He never told another soul after that. He was strong enough to bear it. He was smart enough to learn from it. He would fix whatever was wrong with him, and then his mother would be happy.

*****

Things Maven does not remember:

The afternoon he and Cal spent outside the Silver town limits, free from guards because they’d slipped away and escaped their entourage. Walking with Cal along a dusty road, a few bird calls trilling as background noise to their conversation. Crunching on apples they’d climbed a tree to pick. Cal, turning towards him with confidence and sincerity, saying, “When I’m king, I’ll need you more than ever. I understand battles and legions and strategy, but you have a gift for seeing what I don’t and leveraging it to get what you want. With the two of us together, our reign will be unstoppable.” Their freedom was brief, but he cherished it nonetheless.

Kissing Thomas underneath a sky filled with haze.

The taste of strawberry ice melting on his tongue. The shop he preferred closed when its proprietor died and his heirs chose not to continue the business. He’d tried a few others, but none had come close to the same richness and flavor. Rather than suffer continuous disappointment, he chose to forgo it altogether.

A night with ample, restorative sleep. Even after his mother removed his ability to dream, and with it the constant plague of nightmares, he still fell asleep long after midnight and woke before the dawn. He startled awake at the most innocuous sounds. Foreboding feelings chased him into waking. It was an inconvenience to call for a healer every morning, and so the shadows under his eyes became a constant fixture, only removed for the telecastings where image was everything.

After a council meeting where he’d proposed an alternative tax on produce among the more rural and less affluent populace, his father had taken him aside and praised him for his quick and resourceful thinking and told him he’d make an excellent advisor some day. The glow of pride had stayed with him for nearly a month but languished without further fuel until eventually, it died.

*****

His relationship with his brother begins to change. He hears, more and more frequently, praise heaped upon his brother. For him, though, he runs into snide comments about his frequent losses in Training, muffled snickers when he ends a bout on his back in the dust.

*****

When Mare falls into their lives, she brings about a storm like no other. That she is Red through and through but still commands lightning is fantastical. Lightning. He can think of no Silver ability that is similar.

It’s not just her ability, though that alone would be enough to shake the foundations of their world. It’s her manner as well. The first time he sees her up close, she is not cowed. He notes the fear in her eyes, the tension in her body. But he also sees her shoulders back, her chin tipped up in defiance. And her words - she dances on the very edge between impertinence and outright rebellion.

He’s impressed.

He stays close to her, protects her, and gains her trust per his mother’s orders, and his admiration does not diminish. She’s in over her head and floundering, but she maintains as much dignity as she can. She stands up to his father, to Evangeline, to his mother.

His mother. Grown men tremble in their boots when Elara Merandus looks their way with displeasure in her eyes, but Mare dares to bait her again and again. One could almost call it rash or stupid, but he sees her tremble and shake and ignore it anyway. He sees what she is saying without words: you may have me caged, you may threaten me, you may try to change who I am. But I am here now and I won’t let you forget it.

*****

Eventually, though, the playacting comes to an end. He regrets it; he truly, truly does. He’s grown to respect her ability to remain herself while putting on a facade for the rest of the world. She has cracks, moments where her true self shines through, but she wasn’t born and raised to this life so that’s only natural.

*****

He goes to talk with them one last time. Tomorrow, they die in the arena. Whether he plans on lording over them or not, even he doesn’t know. Why he’s going is a mystery even to him.

He finds them supporting each other, and something within him snaps. For all that she seemed to hate Cal and what he stood for, she’s quick to seek comfort from him. 

To find out that, for some small period of time, someone saw him before Cal? Saw the shadow before the flame? That someone saw something good in him for once, without the need to change him? It sparks a small flame of hope that is just as quickly snuffed out. He can see her disgust, her certainty that he is nothing but his mother’s son: a monster. 

It hurts, and he’s only ever accepted pain from one person. He will return the feeling tenfold.

*****

After they manage to escape into the ocean, he returns to Whitefire and begs his mother to remove Mare from his head. He doesn’t want her thoughts and looks and feelings there, doesn’t want to ruminate on what might have been if she’d just taken the hand he offered.

His mother tries. She tries, and tries, and tries. She fails.

*****

His admiration and burgeoning love for the person she is twists into a dark, dangerous obsession. 

He’s able to mask it, for some time. He hunts those born Red but blessed with Silver abilities. It’s an apt strategy, preventing those who would be sympathetic to the Scarlet Guard’s manifesto from ever joining their number. Prevent a world-altering discovery from further confusing an already roiling court. 

Each one that he finds is an opportunity to find her as well; each one that he finds means that he’s failed to find her, and they die to sate his disappointment.

*****

Finally, though, finally, Mare is within his grasp. She voluntarily submits to him, surrenders to him, and it’s the sweetest feeling. She’s finally his.

That he needed to trade his mother for her doesn’t bother him. She created who he is now, all the twists and turns and obsessions in his mind. She would understand.

*****

The silence after her death is unsettling. 

For a period of time between returning from the war front and the Queenstrial, his mother had ventured infrequently into his mindscape. Even then, it was an attempt to banish the heartache and disgust and slowly twisting hatred from rotting the facade he kept up daily. Either she was satisfied with him or was disgusted and allowing him to burn slowly from the inside out; each was as likely as the other.

And then she’d been in his head every day, tweaking and pulling strings until every aspect of their plan met her approval. For a short time, he’d thought that she would leave him entirely once their goal was in their grasp.

He’d been wrong. Once the crown was settled onto his head, his mother became a fixture in his mind, and he revisited his childhood all over again. 

‘Don’t be so weak. Strength and power are our words to live by. You will not be a king for long if you don’t embrace them.’

‘Stupid! Don’t promise anything to that House, they’ll rise above their station. Just let me handle this; I’ll fix it for you.’

‘I’ve sacrificed much to get you where you are, but it’s never enough for you. You’re your father’s son.’

The headaches ease, and the world is silent. He doesn’t know how to react.

*****

Her voice comes back to him during a council meeting discussing Mare. He’s relieved, though he ignores her orders to interrogate the rat and dispose of her. 

There is no punishment for being willful. 

*****

He discovers that Silent Stone silences mother quite by accident.

Mare’s abilities are a concern for long-term captivity, and he’s looking for more permanent solutions than a team of Arvens around the clock. He’s tired. His court is in turmoil, and the parties can only distract them for so long. His mother keeps up a steady onslaught of words about weakness and hearts and how the girl is just a distraction from more important matters.

He picks up a prototype without thought, and his mother’s diatribe cuts off mid-word.

He commissions a throne made of the stone that day.

*****

Evangeline tires of the status quo and drags Mare in front of the full court. He’s equally impressed and furious. She would make an excellent queen, but never his. She is too intimately entwined with his brother in his mind. 

He’s backed into a corner, outplayed. He gives in and allows the interrogation. Mare’s screams haunt him for days. He’s glad he no longer dreams.

*****

And so the three-way dance between him, Mare, and his court begins. 

*****

Mare wilts and withers before his eyes. 

He’s disgusted.

She never stops defying him. She stands strong though he’s certain there’s no escape. 

He’s enchanted.

*****

Death takes a shot at him and misses. 

He’s furious. He’s frightened. He wants the world to hurt.

This time, Mare’s screams reverberate in his head but never reach his heart.

She’s innocent. It’s little comfort.

*****

He knows Mare is playing little court games with him, but he indulges her. Anything for more time with her, even as she schemes and plots.

His mother calls him a fool.

She isn’t wrong.

*****

But sometimes their talks can be illuminating. He’s seen the end closing in on him since the attempted assassination, though whether it would be by his bride’s hands or the Guard or his brother, he can’t say.

But Mare tries her hand at manipulation and shows him a way. 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Strength in numbers. His forces won’t be divided between a fake war front and the guerilla warfare overtaking his country.

It’s risky. Inviting a nymph to his country, to sit as his near equal. To have a hand in Nortan politics. A constant struggle to outstep and outwit another royal from a dynasty that stretches longer than his own.

‘You’re my son,’ echoes in his head.

He will not die in the Bowl.

*****

Mare escapes.

She runs back to the Guard. To his brother.

He had her, and he let her slip through his fingers. Love and hatred and fascination and anger have warred within him for so long, it’s startling to find one feeling more prominent than the rest.

His anger burns him up from the inside out.

*****

His wife is proud and arrogant. She displays her markings like the warning they are. She wields her words like a knife. She flaunts her ability, water constantly lapping at her heels and dripping from her hands and burbling in her rooms.

His mother’s words are a hissed diatribe of warnings and fear. He struggles to keep from drowning.

*****

And then he nearly does. And that’s the end.

*****

He takes delight in small, petty victories.

His brother is too much a coward to pass judgement himself. He allows his allies to declare Maven guilty and beyond redemption and deserving of death. He sits there, openly relieved not to carry the burden himself.

His allies will find him easy to control.

He finds Mare in the corner and knows she sees it too. She’s too proud to admit it though, that Maven was the better, stronger king for Norta. That for all his faults, at least he wasn’t afraid to commit. 

And now, instead of having the direct connection to the throne that he offered her, the ability to influence him that was within her grasp, she reviles the crown and all it stands for and the one who chooses it over her. Now she will work to bring his brother down.

If he couldn’t have the crown himself, this tastes just as sweet.

*****

He expects to be executed before the day is through. Perhaps the next day, at the latest. He only regrets that Mare will not be the one delivering his end. 

*****

It’s not his end, not yet. 

Montford chooses to flee and takes Maven along. He knows it’s for the knowledge he holds of Norta’s weaknesses. He knows it’s to give them the edge over Cal and Norta’s military might. 

But his last interaction with Mare was kinder, softer than anything since she was his betrothed, and he can’t help the tiniest spark that ignites.

‘We’re not done yet,’ his mother whispers.

He will not go gently into the dark, not again; he knows too intimately what it holds. Hope tastes like the light that he fights to stay within.

*****

When Mare corners him in queen’s chambers and he feels the end drawing near, he can’t help but rail against his fate. He loves this woman before him with every bit he has left to spare, and he knows it’s not enough. Not enough to sway her, not enough to sway himself, not enough to stop this collision of fates.

Not enough to overcome his fear of dying.

He’s given it thought several times, especially after his mother died. Would it be cool oblivion, quiet and dark? Would it be as the Lakelanders believed, eternal rest and peace for those who performed good acts and eternal torment and torture for those wicked enough to punish? 

Would he see his mother?

That thought terrifies him more than the thought of dying. He loves and loathes his mother and feels guilt for both. His mother raised him and loved him and guided him, but she also turned him into a monster without hesitation and called it strength, called it love. 

If he’d just had more time - time away from his mother, away from the benighted crown, away from the constant expectations and judgments of the court - he may have stood a chance. The opportunity to heal, to change, to rediscover himself without constant mental interference.

But his time has run out, and the only things he can be grateful for are that his death is by her hand, and that his mind is finally silent.


End file.
